Now That Andy Murray’s Struggling, He’s Suddenly Not Happy With The London Qualification Rules
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After five years of qualifying for the year-end ATP Finals in London, it’s funny that only now does Andy Murray criticize the entry process for the prestigious event.
By ATP rule, the highest ranked Grand Slam champion not in the Top 8 automatically qualifies for London. With Stan Wawrinka firmly embedded in the Top 5, that leaves Marin Cilic as the wildcard guy, and Murray is not happy that he could finish ranked higher than the Croatian yet not get a spot in the final eight.
Speaking to the Guardian, here’s what Murray said before the David Ferrer match:
“If the ATP want their tournaments to be the most important tournaments, which I think they do – it’s the ATP World Tour Finals – you would hope that the players who would get in would be those who accumulate the most points across the whole year on the ATP tour,” Murray said before his match against Ferrer. “But by putting the grand slam champions in then they would be saying the grand slams are the most important events.
“I’m not saying that’s wrong. I’ve put a lot of my time and effort and training into getting prepared for the grand slams and playing the best-of-five-set matches. They mean a lot to all the players. If Marin was to get in placed ninth, he would deserve to be there. Winning the US Open is a great achievement.
“But if you want to protect your own tour, then you need to make sure that the tournaments that we are playing throughout the whole year are seen as being just as important as the other ones.”
This is simple. Andy, why weren’t you complaining about this rule a few years ago? Why now? Let me guess, it’s because you now realize you might not make it to London! And if you want to get there so badly – without the assistance of Rafael Nadal’s failing appendix which might bail you out in the end – you can always win some more matches. And you should have started by beating David Ferrer today. There’s no rule against winning, is there?
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